


Tarot and Tea Leaves

by MusicPrincess655



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Childhood Friends, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 15:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7538104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicPrincess655/pseuds/MusicPrincess655
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world filled with casters, Oikawa is the only member of a prestigious caster family. When a mysterious face from his past comes back into his life, can he learn to let it go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tarot and Tea Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> For HQ Month, Oikawa day! I've actually been sitting on this fic for weeks since I had the idea a while ago.

“And don’t forget to watch your money for the next week, Kanada-san!” Tooru chirped cheerfully. The sweet old woman gave Tooru a warm smile and a pat on the cheek. 

“You’re a good boy, Oikawa-kun,” she said happily, patting Tooru’s cheek. “I’ll be seeing you soon, I’m sure.”

Tooru smiled to himself, sweeping his tarot cards into a neat stack. They were his most useful tool, mainly because they were a kind of fortune telling usable to non-casters as well as casters. He had crystals and other such devices all around his small shop, but they were basically useless to him. 

Because Oikawa Tooru was not a caster. 

Really, it was unfair. He came from a long line of prestigious casters, magic should have been his birthright. The only person who knew was his sister. He’d done a good job of faking magic talent over the years. 

Tooru passed himself off as a psychic, which wasn’t too strange as there were some psychics in his family tree that covered his tracks. He had a talent for reading people that, when combined with some very good acting skills, natural charisma, and a hint of luck, let him pass as a caster easily. 

The bell over his door chimed as someone walked in. 

“Sorry, I’m about to close,” Tooru called out, looking up from shuffling the cards to see a man walk in. He was a little shorter than Tooru, tanned and muscular, with spiky hair and hazel eyes. 

He was  _ hot.  _

The breeze from the door finally wafted over, blowing Tooru’s cards out of their neat stack. The man made a casual hand gesture, gathering the cards back up. Tooru left the smile on his face, but it wasn’t real anymore. 

This man was a caster. 

“What can I help you with? I really am about to close,” Tooru trilled in his most sugary voice. Most people who didn’t know him assumed he was being sweet. 

“I won’t take long,” the man said. “I’m looking for someone.”

“So you turn to a psychic.” Tooru nodded knowingly. “Well, I’m afraid I won’t be doing any more readings today. Why don’t you come back in the morning?”

“Actually, maybe you know him,” the man went on. “He’s a childhood friend of mine. We got separated fifteen years ago. He’s the son of a caster family.”

“Hmm…that could be a lot of people,” Tooru shrugged. “Got a name to go with that description?”

“I don’t remember his name,” the man said. “Just what he looked like. Hopefully he’ll recognize me when he sees me, too.”

The man looked at Tooru expectantly. Tooru sighed. He didn’t usually do readings for anyone he identified as a caster – and casters rarely asked for them, most preferring to do their readings themselves – but since he already had the tarot cards out, he might as well help this man. It’s not like it would actually take him that long. 

“Got a name I can call you?” Tooru asked, splitting the Major Arcana cards from the Minor Arcana and handing them to him. 

“Iwaizumi Hajime,” the man said, taking the cards and shuffling them eight times. He clearly knew what he was doing, so Tooru wondered why he’d ask someone else to do it. His name was ringing bells at the back of Tooru’s mind, but he couldn’t place why before the man turned over his first card. 

“Lovers, hmm,” Tooru said, looking at the card. 

“Is that a good thing?” Iwaizumi asked. 

“I won’t really know until you draw your other cards,” Tooru said, handing him the Minor Arcana deck. “Shuffle and draw three.”

Iwaizumi complied, shuffling eight times as before, cutting it into three piles, and turning over the top card of each pile. The first was an upright six of cups, the second was an upright seven of swords, and the third was a reversed ace of cups. 

“I’m sure you already know some of this, but I’ll take you through everything anyway,” Tooru said after a moment of contemplation over the cards. “The first card you turned over – that’s you, by the way – is the Lovers, but it’s reversed, which means disharmony, imbalance, or misalignment of values. Your spread is mostly cups, too, which leads me to believe your problem is mostly emotional. 

“Anyway, this first card is what’s going on in the physical realm for you, and it’s the upright six of cups. It means reunion, childhood memories, nostalgia, which sounds good, but in reference to the Lovers…am I right in assuming you left the person you’re looking for with a fight?”

Iwaizumi looked guilty and nodded. 

“Well, past that, you’ve already told me you’re looking for your childhood friend, so this just confirms that,” Tooru continued. “Next card is what’s going on with you mentally. This is an upright seven of swords, which means strategy, betrayal, deceit.” 

Tooru looked up at Iwaizumi, taking his suddenly closed off expression as confirmation of his hunch. 

“You’re hiding something. Maybe from me, maybe from someone else, but you’re hiding something. Maybe it’s the reason for the fight, if I pull the Lovers card in again.”

Iwaizumi’s face looked hard, but still hopeful. 

“This last card is usually taken as a message from the spirit,” Tooru went on. “You’ve got the reversed ace of cups. That means blocked or repressed emotions. Based on everything else that I’ve seen so far? You’re hiding something, and you need to come clean about it to move forward. You’re going to be at an imbalance until you do, and that might prevent you from finding the person you’re looking for.”

“So just tell the truth?” Iwaizumi asked. “Is it really that easy for you?”

Somehow, it felt like Iwaizumi meant something else when he said that. Tooru felt the smile freeze on his face, completely fake. 

“I’m closed now, Iwa-chan,” he said coldly. “Come back tomorrow if you’d like anything else.” 

_ Or don’t _ , his tone implied. Iwaizumi unsettled him, more so than most casters, and calling him Iwa-chan mockingly was only setting off more alarm bells in his mind. He just wanted this man out of his store and hopefully, out of his life. 

“Iwa-chan?” Iwaizumi asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Customers who stay past closing hours must accept whatever nicknames the great Oikawa-san bestows upon them,” Tooru said, trying to make it clear that he wanted Iwaizumi  _ out.  _

Iwaizumi seemed to get the message, raising his hands and turning to go. He turned back when he reached the door, giving Tooru a long look that made his skin prickle before walking out. 

***

Tooru had exactly one response to being unsettled like that. It involved his best friends and copious amounts of alcohol. 

“And then – can you believe this, Makki? – he has the audacity to ask if it’s so easy to tell the truth for me! It was like he was calling me out for lying!” Tooru kicked back a shot of tequila, wincing at the taste and the kick. He was normally a fan of sweeter stuff, but he was trying to get drunk as quickly as possible so he could go to sleep and forget how unsettled Iwaizumi made him feel. 

“It sounds like he was just asking a simple question after a reading,” Hanamaki replied, deadpan in the face of Tooru’s gestures and squawks. They’d been friends since high school and were used to each other. 

“And he had to just… _ broadcast  _ his  _ casterness  _ all over the place,” Tooru seethed. 

“So first of all, casterness is not a word,” Makki said, deadpan expression still in place. “You never would’ve known he was a caster if he hadn’t told you, because casters are just people. Second of all, I know you’ve got this whole inferiority complex because you’re the only non-caster child of a prestigious caster family, and as such have a deep seated hatred of all casters related to your feelings of jealousy and inadequacy.” 

Sometimes it sucked to be best friends with a psychology grad student. 

“Besides,” he went on, “you get along just fine with Issei, and he’s a caster.”

“Mattsun is different,” Tooru scoffed. “He’s not an asshole, flaunting his powers all over the place, acting better than non-casters.”

“It never fails to amaze me how you can simultaneously be best friends with Issei and still hate all casters,” Makki said, shaking his head. “It’s like you’ve created some bubble in your head that separates him from every other caster. They’re just people, they’re not out to get you, and this Iwaizumi was probably just a nice guy looking for an old friend.”

“I heard my name,” Mattsun said, dropping into the seat next to Makki and handing out drinks. 

“Oh, good, you were making yourself useful.” Tooru scooped up a few more shots of tequila. 

“Our dear Tooru is having caster problems again.” Makki looked up at Mattsun from under his arm. 

“Caster problems?”

“As in, he’s complaining about the fact that they exist and he’s not one of them again,” Makki shrugged. Mattsun turned and stared at Tooru for a moment before clicking his fingers and turning the shots purple. Tooru shrieked and glared at him, ignoring Makki dissolving into giggles. 

He drank the shots anyway. They might have been purple, but they were still tequila. 

Once he was properly tipsy, he started roaming the club. He looked good and he knew it, so he browsed for a cute girl or guy to dance with. He’d never gotten that attached to anyone from a club, never had much to do with any of them past a few one night stands. Makki and Mattsun teased him a lot about getting all the attention but no relationship, but he knew they worried about him. Which they shouldn’t. He was only twenty five, there was no reason for him to settle down. Just because the two of them had been sucking each other’s dicks since high school didn’t mean Tooru had to find someone to spend his life with right now. 

He mostly attracted attention from girls, which was the norm, but every so often a guy would come up to dance with him. He was having a good time, shitty end of his day be damned. He thought he saw a flash of spiky hair and muscular arms through the crowd, but it was probably just his drunk imagination playing tricks on him. 

Then he felt a jolt go through his right knee. He disengaged from the woman he was dancing with, murmuring apologies as he limped off the dance floor. Makki and Mattsun both made to stand, but he waved them off, pointing at the door to indicate he was going home now. 

Before he could leave, however, someone stepped in front of him, and Tooru realized that he  _ didn’t _ have an overactive drunk imagination. 

“Are you okay?” Iwaizumi asked, hazel eyes open and worried. 

“Oh god, not you, not now,” Tooru whined. A part of his mind recognized how drunk he must be if he was being this rude, but at the same time, he didn’t owe Iwaizumi anything. “I’m going home, Iwa-chan, just leave me alone.”

“You’re limping,” Iwaizumi said, following him out the door. “You’re not okay.”

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” Tooru snapped through gritted teeth, although the twinges in his knee told him he was going to have to sit down on his way home at the very least. “I don’t need  _ your _ help _. _ ”

“Stop being so damn stubborn!” Iwaizumi snapped right back as Tooru used the brick wall to his right to support some of his weight as he limped along. “At least let me use a damn healing spell!”

Tooru stopped and drew himself up to his full height, which a petty part of him was glad to realize was taller than Iwaizumi. He was filled with the anger he would always feel towards casters, anger at his damn knee that had failed him when he needed it most, had taken away his scouting to a university and professional volleyball career because some idiot who’d had too much to drink had plowed into the side of his car one night and destroyed it beyond hope of complete repair. 

“Listen up, Iwa-chan,” he said, voice cold as ice. “You don’t get to tell me how I live my life. If I want to use a damn healing spell, then I’ll do so. If I don’t, then I won’t. You don’t get to tell me which is which, and you  _ definitely  _ don’t get to keep hanging around after I’ve told you to leave. So…”

The rest of his sentence cut off when he reached the end of the wall and started to fall. Iwaizumi caught him and, before his drunk brain could process what was happening, hoisted him onto his back. Tooru squawked, already struggling and squirming. 

“Put me down!”

“So you can hop all the way home?” Iwaizumi snapped. “I don’t know why you hate me so much, but I’m just trying to help. Now tell me where to take you home.”

“Hell no! Just put me down!”

“You either tell me where home is or you come home with me,” Iwaizumi threatened. He squeezed Tooru’s thighs where he was holding them up. Tooru gave him his best glare for a moment before sighing and giving him directions. He held himself stiff as Iwaizumi walked, keeping himself from slumping into his back, refusing to acknowledge the part that was reveling in Iwaizumi’s strong muscles and willingness to help a stranger in need. 

Iwaizumi carried him to his door, and Tooru expected him to just leave him there. However, he asked for Tooru’s key and wouldn’t let go until Tooru handed it over. Iwaizumi walked through Tooru’s apartment, setting Tooru gently on the bed and turning around. 

“There. You’ve taken me home. Thanks and all, but you can leave now,” Tooru said. He’d had quite enough of Iwaizumi for one day. 

“Let me take a look at your knee,” Iwaizumi insisted. Tooru glared at him, but Iwaizumi didn’t budge. Finally, Tooru huffed and turned his head to the side. His head was spinning too much from all the alcohol anyway. 

Iwaizumi rolled up the leg of his pants. Tooru sucked in a breath as he eased the cuff over his knee. Iwaizumi whistled. 

“That’s…that’s really swollen,” he said quietly, staring at Tooru’s knee. “How long has it been like this?”

“College,” Tooru replied, and refused to elaborate like the child he on some level knew he was being. Iwaizumi looked at him for a moment, silently asking for him to continue, but sighed when Tooru refused. 

“Okay, so I’m just going to do a simple healing spell and…”

“Don’t use magic on me!”

“What?” Iwaizumi looked confused. “But you’re in pain and I can help, why don’t you…?”

“NO!”

“Fine! Just…just let me get you some ice, at least,” Iwaizumi pleaded. Tooru nodded, keeping his face turned away. Once Iwaizumi walked out of the room, Tooru quickly changed into his pajamas and laid back down, tucking a pillow under his knee to elevate it. 

Iwaizumi walked back in with an ice pack, setting it carefully on Tooru’s knee. 

“Can I get you anything else?” Iwaizumi asked, fingers twitching nervously like he was still on the verge of a spell. 

“Just…just go, please?” Tooru asked, already hazy from the alcohol. He would sleep and his knee would feel better in the morning. Iwaizumi turned and left without another word. 

Tooru woke the next morning to find some sort of potion Iwaizumi had left him, with instructions to rub it on his knee twice a day to keep the swelling down. He dropped it in the trash on the way out the door without a second thought. 

***

Iwaizumi came into the store again. 

“Missing me already, Iwa-chan?” Tooru asked in the sickly sweet way that he’d already noticed got an annoyed reaction out of Iwaizumi. He wanted this man to leave him in peace. 

“I…I have something to ask you,” Iwaizumi said. “And something to tell you.”

Tooru raised an eyebrow expectantly. 

“I was looking for my childhood friend, and I hoped he would remember me…but you clearly don’t,” Iwaizumi looked hopefully into Tooru’s eyes. “We were neighbors, Oikawa. We were best friends. You really don’t remember me at all?”

Tooru’s eyes went wide as he remembered a little boy his own age next door, remembered running through the woods and pretending to be powerful casters, remembered the boy pretending to be his knight as he took on hosts of demons and fae in their backyards. 

And he remembered…

“We got in a fight,” he whispered. “You teased me for not being able to do magic.”

Iwaizumi looked shamefaced. Fifteen years ago on Tooru’s tenth birthday, the birthday of the onset of magic, he’d had no powers. His parents had been sure he just had a more subtle gift and had told him to play and not worry about it. Iwaizumi had been so sure that Tooru’s magic would appear if he was just pushed hard enough.

It was after Iwaizumi had pushed him off a fallen tree trunk and Tooru had twisted his ankle that Tooru begged tearfully to stop before running back home. He’d ignored Iwaizumi for a week before his family went on vacation, where he steadfastly ignored all of Iwaizumi’s calls. When they got back, Iwaizumi was gone. They hadn’t seen each other since. 

“Tooru, I’m so sorry,” Iwaizumi said. “I tried to apologize back then, and I’ve been trying to apologize ever since then. It was such a shitty thing to do, and I never should’ve done it.”

Tooru’s eyes stayed wide as he remembered all the things he’d tried to forget, remembered the puppy crush he’d had on his best friend. 

“Please leave,” he begged softly. Iwaizumi looked stricken, but put a piece of paper down on the counter. 

“This is my number, just in case you change your mind,” Iwaizumi said sadly, walking away from the counter and giving Tooru one last forlorn look over his shoulder as he left. 

***

“You know drinking this much in such a short period of time isn’t good for you, right?” Makki asked, actual concern in his voice. 

“Shut up, Makki, I’m having a crisis,” Tooru griped, taking another swig of his drink. 

“You’re being a child. Your best friend from years ago – who you admit you used to be in love with – came back looking for you to apologize for being shitty, which I’ll remind you is something children inherently  _ are _ . And you just…sent him away, and now you’re sulking because the love of your life is gone?”

“Love is for children,” Tooru countered. “We haven’t seen each other in fifteen years; I don’t even know who he is as a person anymore. I’m not in love with him.”

“No, but you’re infatuated with him. Otherwise you wouldn’t be this upset,” Makki said patiently. 

“Tooru, you haven’t had this much to drink at one time since college,” Mattsun cut in, looking just as worried as Makki. “We’re just worried about you. You always want to run instead of dealing with your problems, and it never works out for you in the end. This could be good for you. Don’t run from this one.”

Sometimes having such good friends sucked. Especially when they were right.

***

Tooru met Iwaizumi at a coffeeshop the next day. He should’ve figured Iwaizumi would be the type to drink his coffee black. They sat in awkward silence for a few moments. 

“What I really want to know is why you spent fifteen years trying to apologize for something that happened when we were children,” Tooru finally asked. Iwaizumi swallowed. 

“I’ve felt bad about it since then. I wanted to apologize, but I never got the chance since we moved, and by the time I went back to that town you’d already left. I had to follow your volleyball career to figure out where you ended up. I finally tracked you to here, and tracked you down, and finally apologized.”

“You tracked my volleyball career?”

“From what I can tell, you were really good,” Iwaizumi smiled. “I always wondered why you didn’t go pro, but after seeing your knee…I get it. And I’m sorry.”

“I’m over it,” Tooru replied, and in a way, he was. He didn’t hate his life, not by a long shot. “But…you really cared enough about apologizing to me to track me down after fifteen years?”

Iwaizumi blushed pink across his cheeks, looking down and fidgeting. 

“I…well…to be honest, I was kind of in love with you when we were kids.” Tooru froze. “I’m not saying I’m trying to pursue that now! I just…want to be friends with you again. More than anything.”

Tooru contemplated for a moment as Iwaizumi squirmed. 

“Take me out to dinner,” he commanded. Iwaizumi jumped. 

“What?” 

“Take me out to dinner. Let’s give this dating thing a try,” Tooru said, ignoring his heart rate. 

“Oh…okay then.” Iwaizumi looked like he was already in over his head. Tooru giggled. 

***

_ A few months later… _

Tooru was just closing up shop when the bell rang. He looked up to see Iwaizumi looking at him expectantly. 

“Just a second, Iwa-chan, I’m almost done,” he teased, stacking his tarot cards protectively out of the way. 

He finished up quickly and they left together, going to see a new alien movie that Tooru had been obsessing over since he’d seen the trailer. They still had a long way to go. They were still figuring out their relationship, and Tooru was still getting over his inherent bitterness towards casters. 

Still, things were looking bright. On an impulse, Tooru looked back into the shop before locking up. Though he’d stacked the tarot cards neatly, one had been turned over, probably by the wind. Even from here, Tooru could see that it was the Lovers, this time upright to symbolize love, relationships, value alignment. 

He smiled. He might not be able to use magic, but it was in the world around them, and sometimes, it worked for him. He tucked his arm into Iwaizumi’s and walked off into a brighter future. 

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus points to whoever knows what the title is a reference to.


End file.
